


Control

by Diary



Category: London Spy
Genre: Bechdel Test Fail, Canon Gay Character, Conversations, Established Danny Holt/Alex Turner, Established Relationship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mother-Son Relationship, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 01:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6218413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diary/pseuds/Diary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A heavily Frances-centric piece with elements of Danny/Alex and an original character. Complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own London Spy.

Frances Turner stares.

The investigator squirms.

“Let me make sure I understand you: The leak has been identified. The leak has been contained. The leak has consistently sworn to have acted alone, and all evidence supports this. And yet, my son is still in detainment. Wait, allow me to rephrase that: A valued employee who has passed all scrutiny is being detained when there is no active investigation and no suspicion of wrongdoing on his part.”

“That’s sort of the problem, Mrs Turner,” is the apologetic response. “We can’t find a control.”

“Even when he tells a direct lie, the machine reads it as a truth?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’ve ran numerous tox screens, and there’s absolutely nothing we can find in his system. We’ve- we’ve tried explaining to him- but he’s incredibly calm, regardless?”

“Allow me to talk to him, and I can get you your control.”

…

After another three hours, she’s finally allowed to go in.

Her heart clenches when she sees Alistair sitting in a chair with equipment strapped to him.

Legally, he must be given food, a cot, a set number of hours to sleep, and access to a shower.

From what she’s found out, he’s only consumed a small amount of the food offered (always such a fussy eater), and with his insomnia, being given the right to sleep doesn’t mean he has. If he requested a razor, it was denied: He has stubble on his cheeks and around his mouth. Per regulation, all employees must surrender their shoes and any belts, ties, and/or jewellery. Even his watch has been taken from him.

When he was twelve years old, he found it in a catalogue and told her he wanted it for his birthday. When she’d presented it to him a week later, he’d _hugged_ her and, for about a week, he’d shown it to people at random and told them she’d given it to him.

It’s one of the few memories she has where they’re both happy, and she desperately hopes the fact he’s kept it after all these years is some proof of sentimentality on his part.

Despite all he’s endured and is continuing to endure, he’s still calm enough a machine can’t detect any lies, and she isn’t sure how she feels about this.

“Frances,” he greets with tired eyes.

You hate me, don’t you, she sadly thinks. And you will even more once I do this, but I can’t let them keep you caged.

Sitting down, she responds, “Alistair. Have you been treated well?”

He nods, and then, remembers verbal answers are required. “Yes.”

“Has anything exciting happened in your life recently?”

“Define exciting.”

“Never mind,” she says. “Tell me, were you ever going to tell me about this Holt boy?”

It’s subtle, but his body jerks.

“You don’t have the right to ask this type of question.”

“Wrong,” she says. “The investigators don’t have a right to. However, until you’re cleared, you’ll remain under observation. They’re allowing me to talk to you as a courtesy. They’re all tired, Alistair. They want to go home. I imagine you want to get back to him. How many hours has it been since he’s heard from you?”

There’s fear in his eyes, now.

“I haven’t done anything,” she assures him. “You don’t love him, do you?”

Quietly, he responds, “I’m not required to respond to you.”

“No,” she agrees, “you’re not.”

After the silence has grown oppressively heavy, she says, “Tell me you don’t love him.”

“I’m not required to respond.”

“Talking to you instead of going to him is a courtesy on my part, Alistair.”

He looks at her with almost pleading eyes.

“If you want to be free, you’ll do as I say,” she continues. “Tell me you don’t love him, Alistair.”

“His name is Danny,” he says.

“Danny,” she softly repeats.

Tears are forming in his eyes, and she forces herself to ignore them. “Say it, Alistair. When I walk out of here- I know where he lives. It’s in his best interest for you to convince me not to utilise that information.”

“What- He has nothing to do with any of this, Frances. Please, leave him alone. Please.”

“You’re an adult, Alistair. Everyone has his or her vices. If that’s what you choose to get your rocks off with, then, it’s not my business. God knows what Charles fell into bed with when we were younger. However, if you’ve gotten some ridiculous idea in your head about loving him- Do you think I’m going to stand by and let him destroy everything? I’ve given you everything, and you can still go so much farther in this world, provided you don’t get any foolish notions about unworthy little boys.”

He reaches up with his free hand and wipes his eyes. “I don’t love him.”

“You don’t love Danny?”

“I don’t love Danny.”

His tone is a bit too calm for her liking, but seeing his hand is shaking, she knows what the machine is reading.

Sighing, she stands up. “I hope you’ll understand this someday, Alistair. Have your fun, but remember this.”

When she gets to the doorway, she hesitates. “As much as you hate me, I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.”

She hurries out.

If the damn machine didn’t register the lie about Danny- well, Alistair himself just provided the control.

…

Occasionally, a young MI5 agent comes to check up on her and Charles.

At some point, she started playing Go with him.

He’s strategic but overly-cautious.

“Personal question?”

“If you can’t find out the answer yourself without asking, you don’t deserve your job.”

He shrugs. “Subtle attempt to ask for advice disguised as a personal question?”

Briefly, she looks up.

There was a time she didn’t have children treating her as a mother-figure, she knows. Most of the MI5 agents who come are polite and vaguely dismissive. A few of them see an old woman they can talk to about their personal lives. 

“Not very subtle,” she says. “However, I’ll allow it. Just be warned: any advice I dispense should have a second opinion before acted on.”

He nods.

She waits.

“So, there’s this boy,” he says. “And it might sound like he’s asking for work-related advice, but he’s not. He knows something about someone, and he’s not sure whether to tell someone else what he knows or not.”

“What’s the damage to him if he does tell vs if he doesn’t?”

“Well, there’s a woman involved,” he starts.

“I do hope your official reports are more orderly than this,” she interjects. “Start over from the beginning and explain all the variables in order.”

Nodding, he takes a moment. “There’s this boy interested in a woman. He knows something. If he tells someone else what he knows about her, he loses any chance of her-” He flushes slightly. “But if he doesn’t tell, he gets to see her sad and lonely.”

“How much of a chance does he gain through her sadness and loneliness?”

At his stare, she shrugs. “You’ve read my file and have spent months observing me up close. In addition, whatever some would like to believe, people take advantage of people all the time, especially when it comes to sex and love. Although, based on your reaction, I’d say you just realised what course you’re going to take.”

“Encouragement or pep talk?”

Chuckling slightly, she makes a move on the board. Then, looking up, she says, “In exchange for you answering a personal question, yes.”

He quickly nods.

“Boy for you, woman for her. Why?”

He looks down and turns his head so she can’t see his eyes.

Finally, he quietly answers, “I’m a low-level MI5 agent. I’ve had one girlfriend in my life, and outside of her, I’ve had one one-night stand. Objective fact: She’s brilliant and beautiful.”

“Putting aside the fact the latter can never completely be classified as a fact, especially an objective one: Kind, too? Funny?”

“She can be,” he answers. “If I was limited to one word: Strong.”

“And that’s what you’re going to tell the other person. Who you know she wants.”

He sighs. “Yeah.”

“I don’t envy your position,” she bluntly informs him. “I’m not sure I completely understand it, either. Furthermore, I absolutely despise George MacDonald’s quote on love and trust. With all that said, I promise you, you’ll eventually get over this woman. You’ll find someone new. And being a trustworthy person will make you naturally appealing.”

“MI5,” he says.

“Putting the well-being of someone above yours even though you will suffer,” she counters. “Whatever lies you might tell some civilian about your job, you can’t hide your nature for very long. Someone will trust you with their heart someday, and based on this, I’d say there’s a good probability they’d be right to do so.”

“Thank you,” he quietly says.

…

She’s reading in the maze when she hears, “Frances.”

Looking up, she finds herself staring at Alistair.

Getting up, she asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he answers.

“Oh, well, then, not that I’m unhappy you’re here, but why are you here?”

“You lied.”

Taken aback, she simply asks, “About what?”

“Danny.”

If something has happened to that boy, she thinks.

“If you want a proper response, you’ll need to elaborate on what exactly you’re accusing me of.”

No, if something had happened, Alistair wouldn’t be this calm.

“You never had any intention of hurting him.”

“What made you come to that conclusion?”

Walking over, he sits down.

She follows suit.

“You were being monitored in the detainment room, too.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve seen the reports. You lied.”

“People rather than a machine made that determination,” she reminds him. “Assuming, however, they made the correct one, I’m still unclear what I lied about regarding Daniel Holt.”

“His name is Danny, and my name is Alex.”

“I gave you the name Alistair, and that’s how I’ll refer to you,” she responds.

“I’ve done research,” he tells her. “You conducted a background check on Danny three weeks after I met him. You’ve- kept track of me and my relationship with him but not to the point of truly active surveillance. One of the MI5 investigators told me the reason you were granted permission to speak to me was because you assured them you could provide an effective control.”

“And I did.”

“You did by implying you would hurt Danny if I didn’t verbally agree to your hurtful, inaccurate opinion of him. You made me say- You knew I loved him. You know I love him.”

Nodding, she tells him, “Every legitimate government agency and branch of law enforcement agrees lie detectors are unreliable. However, you were making them truly nervous. They soon would have resorted to drugs to see if they could ensure you were telling the truth. They would have begun breaking into every aspect of your life while you sat in a cell, if they hadn’t already. In addition, as cruel as you found my actions, if you’d gotten a homophobic investigator, you would have been subjected to much worse, regardless of what they’re legally prohibited from asking.”

“You could have explained all of this then.”

“If I had, if I’d gently gotten you to say objectionable, untrue things, there’s a chance you still would have registered as truthful. You had to be truly hurt or angry or scared.”

Sighing, she trails her fingers against her book. “You didn’t answer, but it was 79 hours. I had to look that up. You could have answered right then. Well, thanks to me, you got to go back to him. You were no longer sitting in small rooms and being prodded. I helped free you.”     

“Now,” she continues, “if you’re hungry or tired, feel free to eat and rest. Otherwise, there really isn’t anything more I can offer you. Best get back to your Danny.”

She starts to stand up and jumps when she feels his hand touch hers.

“You love me.”

Looking down, she answers, “Of course, I love you, Alistair. You’re my son.”

“You wanted a spy. Despite my employment with MI6, I haven’t fulfilled that very well.”

She imagines, if hearts could literally break inside a living chest without killing the host, this is what it would feel like.

Sitting back down, she notices he hasn’t let go of her hand. “Perhaps, I shouldn’t have been a mother. But once I met you, I knew I couldn’t condemn this brilliant little boy to a world that would either forever ignore him or take advantage of him if he didn’t become cruel and ruthless enough to force it to acknowledge him on his own terms. I’ve already been through that.”

“I suppose,” she muses, “the difference is, I was already predisposed towards cruelness and ruthlessness. You’re such a sweet boy; I don’t imagine anything could have made you that way. And I admit, I paid more attention to your brilliance than anything else. Nevertheless, being a mother doesn’t mean you only love if your child is brilliant or kind or somehow useful. You love them and you try to help them no matter what. If you had been responsible for the leak, I don’t know if I could have gotten you free, but I would have done everything possible to make sure you were kept alive, treated fairly, and had some comforts. Since you weren’t, however, I was going to do everything possible to get you back home to your boyfriend, where I knew you’d be safe and happy.”

“I told Danny you were dead.”

“Unsurprising,” is her only response.

“Would you like to meet him?”

Shocked, she looks over.

She can’t quite read the look in his eyes, but they’re full of kindness.

“If you do, I need help, Frances. How do you admit to someone you love, who trusts you, that you lied and not risk them- Aside from getting involved with him in the first place, everything I’ve done, I’ve done it to try to keep him safe from any harm my job might bring him.”

“Does he love you?”

“I’ve never asked, and he’s never said. Based on the evidence, I would answer yes.”

“Have you ever said it to him?”

“No.”

“That’s where you should to start, then. We both know his past, Alistair. Whether he’s told you or not, we both know. There are all sorts of reasons lies are told. If you love someone and they love you- sometimes, there’s no choice but to forgive the lies. I’ve never thought that was as unfortunate as some consider it to be. Someone who murders or kills will always be a murderer or a killer even if they never do it again. Some would say an addict will always be an addict even if they successfully refrain from partaking in their addiction. However, I refuse to label someone who has desisted lying or stealing as a liar or thief.”

There’s a wonder she hasn’t heard for years in Alistair’s tone when he announces, “I get that from you.”

Smiling, she leans over and kisses his cheek. Then, pulling him up by hand, she says, “Tell me about him in your own words.”

“Kindness fits him more than it ever will me,” he starts. “Being ignored or taken advantage of is what he’s suffered. My insomnia is much more manageable when I’m with him.” With hints of despair and exasperation seeping in, he tells her, “The concept of soulmates- he believes in them. We had a- fight over it.”

Holding his hand, she walks through the maze and listens to jumbled facts about Daniel Holt and how he makes her son feel.

…

Agent Jude Bentley sat down across from Alistair Turner in the tiny room. “Mister Turner, I’m Junior Inspector Bentley.” He held up his badge.

Almost everyone nodded, and many people reached over to shake hands or take the badge, but following the instructions to remain as still as possible while the equipment was attached, Turner simply said, “I understand.”

“I sometimes have an odd way of speaking,” Agent Bentley told him. “If you need clarification, please ask.”

“I understand.”

“You’re in luck,” Bentley said. “I don’t know if she’s told you, but I know your mother. She already murders me at Go, I can’t imagine what she’d do if I- Anyway, assuming you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear.”

Again, Turner repeated, “I understand.”

There was a slight reaction caught by the machine when Frances Turner was mentioned, but it was slight enough to be completely ambiguous.

“Maybe later, you can give me some tips,” Bentley added. “She keeps telling me loose passive can win against tight aggressive, but really, I think she just gets pleasure from my pain.”

“Those are poker terms.”

Bentley shrugged. “And a clearer picture emerges.”

He asked the standard questions, got the expected answers, and he didn’t need to know Frances Turner to know Alistair Turner was completely innocent.

The problem, he knew, was people are expected to find something dirty if they look close enough, even if it’s not the dirty thing they’re looking for. When someone utterly boring or, even rarer, someone with so little dirt they’re almost spotlessly clean, came around, everyone assumed they were extremely talented at hiding the dirt, and it stood to reason, they wouldn’t need such talent if it weren’t an extremely large pile of dirt.

He could guess what Turner was fiercely yet calmly hoping no one would ask.

All of the bills, electric, gas, and water, had dramatically dropped at Turner’s flat over the past year. Turner either can’t or chose not cook, but not only had his financials shown a significant drop in the amount of restaurants he visited and takeout he received, his physicals had started showing subtle differences. He’d gained some weight and was healthier for it; there’d been more variation in his diet, and his insomnia had lessened in severity. Until recently, it was a question of when, not if, he’d begin requiring prescription medication.

Yet, there were no pictures of a pretty girl on his desk or in his wallet.      

The cruelty of the world almost lost Bentley his sister, and he dreaded the day he might decide to attack someone in much the way she’d been attacked in order to gain information. Serving God, Queen or King, and country meant sacrifices, he knew, but sometimes, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to properly make all those sacrifices required.

“Right,” he says. “Mister Turner, you’ve been very calm. For the questions you’re telling the truth on, that’s good. However, I need to establish a baseline in your responses. I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want you to lie. Okay?”

“I understand.”

He soon found himself staring despairingly at the results.

On one question, there was something of a disparity but not enough to fully establish anything.

“There was a slight change when I asked your name. Why?”

“Truth or lie?”

“Truth,” he answered.

“I prefer ‘Alex’.”

“Right, well, Alex, do you think- you’re too calm. There’s really no other way to say it.  You’re telling lies, and yet, you don’t seem to view this as wrong.”

“I’ve stated falsehoods at your request in order to establish a baseline for the lie detector. I haven’t engaged in any true form of deception, and therefore, I’ve done nothing to view as wrong.”

“Oh, you’re definitely your mum’s son,” Bentley sighed. “Sorry, then, but I’m required to ask you to submit to a drugs test so that we can make sure you aren’t using any medication in order to artificially control your reactions and fool the machine. You have the right to refuse, but refusal means-”

“I know all of this, and I agree to the drugs testing.”

Once a urine, salvia, and blood sample had been secured, Bentley tried again, and again, every answer, truthful or not, read as the former.

He knew this wasn’t good. A large chunk of MI6 employees had been cleared- once it got out how much difficulty, unintentionally or not, Turner was causing, he’d have a taint following him.

If he were officially labelled as something- autistic, suffering from some non-violent personality order, anything along those lines- there might be an exception Bentley and Turner’s boss could appeal to, but Bentley imagined it’d’ve been a cold day in hell before Frances Turner had let her minor son be labelled as anything other than incredibly precocious and, perhaps, a bit shy.

Tiredly, he said, “That’s all for tonight, Mister Turner. I’m sorry, until this is settled, you’re remanded to MI5’s custody. We’re not going to move you, however. You can stay in one of the lounge rooms. Agents will always be within five feet of you.”

“I understand.”

Feeling a sense of pity and hoping this might give him more chance at one day actually winning a game of Go, he said, “This isn’t a test or a trick. Whether it’s actually allowed or not, do you want me to call your mum for you? I think we could probably get clearance for her to visit, maybe bring you some things.”

“No.”

Bentley watched the recording of completely steady vitals on his screen.

He sent a signal for the technicians to come remove the equipment.

“I’ll do us both a favour and not ask,” he said. “My sister and I don’t speak to our parents, either. Of course, if anyone deserves it, it’s them.”

He wasn’t sure what caused it, but Turner looked at him with something approaching interest. “Is that an implication you believe my treatment of Frances is wrong?"

“I know the difference between what is and isn’t my business,” he answered. “Families, huh? You can love them, they can love you, and somehow, you can still manage to end up hating each other.”

“Frances doesn’t love me.”

Truth, the machine said.

The techs came in, but Bentley motioned for them to stop.

“Do you love Frances?”

“Yes.”

Truth, the machine said again.

…

Alex never requested the reports from his period of detainment, but a copy ended up on his desk.

“Sorry,” an MI5 agent told him when he alerted them of this. “If you think this is a security risk, here’s my boss’s card. It’s best to try to catch her at around nine in the morning, that’s when she’ll most likely respond in English. Every other hour, she’s talking to some foreign somebody, and sometimes, she’ll just answer whoever’s talking to her in whatever language she was recently speaking. Most likely, someone just automatically sent it. It’s rare for us to **not** receive requests after something like this happens.”

…

“If Agent Bentley comes today, tell him I’ll be at this address,” Frances tells Charles.

He glances down at the paper. “Bentley, he’s the one who plays Go?”

“Yes,” she answers. Slipping in her earrings, she adds, “Maybe now that he’s no longer spending most of his Sunday afternoons here, he might work up the courage to go after this girl he fancies.” 

He laughs, but before she can ask why, he inquires, “You’re going to see the boy and that man he’s taken up with?”

“Yes,” she answers.

Daniel Holt looks at her with kind, slightly wary eyes and is almost clumsy in his attempts to make her feel welcome.

When they first met, there was a brief flash in those same eyes, and she knows, while he’s not a killer, he’ll destroy her in an instant if it becomes a necessary action to take in order to protect his Alex.

Alistair will always be more his than hers, but right now, she has a son willing to talk to her rather a distant man sharing her name to constantly and fruitlessly worry and wonder over.

**Author's Note:**

> Bentley was supposed to have one scene: His conversation with Frances. Instead, this happened. Be warned, he might show up in other fics. When I was writing his section with Alex, I originally planned to have Alex ask another question about Frances and that combined with Bentley's response is a scene I'd really like to see but simply didn't fit into this fic. So, if there's a chance in a different fic...


End file.
